This book paints a mostly grim picture of the daily lives of urban street youth. While most young people invest the largest part of their daily energies in the relatively benign worlds of school or work, homeless youth spend most of their time less profitably and more dangerously on the street and in parks, social assistance offices, shelters, and abandoned buildings. Together with friends acquired on the street, they spend a large part of their time looking for food, shelter, and money. Some actively seek and find work, but most remain unemployed, spending their time hanging out, panhandling, partying, and foraging in the shadow economy of the street.

Clearly, the outlook for most of these youth is bleak. Most will experience profound difficulties in making the transition from adolescent to adult roles. Recent structural changes in employment opportunities and the increasing domination of the service sector with its poor-paying and unstable jobs make this transition especially problematic for youth with limited human and social capital (Krahn, 1991; Revenga, 1992). Life course research confirms that the problems of troubled youth often anticipate difficulties in adulthood, in terms of crime, work, marriage, and other measures of well-being (e.g., Robins and Rutter, 1990). This body of research suggests the odds are poor that street youth will successfully traverse the important transitions necessary to move successfully from adolescence to normative adulthood.